1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display and, more particularly, to a liquid crystal display having improved display quality.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (“LCD”) includes two substrates, such as a lower substrate and an upper substrate, on which field generation electrodes, such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode, respectively, are formed, and a liquid crystal molecule layer interposed between the two substrates. An electric field is generated in the liquid crystal molecule layer by applying voltages to the field generation electrodes, a polarization of an incident light is controlled based on an alignment of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal molecule layer according to the electric field, and an image is thereby displayed on the LCD.
A vertical alignment mode is often utilized in the LCD. Specifically, in the vertical alignment mode, main directors of the liquid crystal molecules are arranged at right angles to the upper substrate and the lower substrate when no electric field is applied thereto. The vertical alignment mode LCD has a high contrast ratio and a wide reference viewing angle relative to LCDs which utilize other alignment modes. However, the vertical alignment mode LCD has a reduced side visibility in comparison to it's a front visibility thereof. To improve the side visibility of the LCD utilizing the vertical alignment mode, a method has been proposed wherein, one pixel is divided into a pair of sub-pixels, a switching element is formed for each sub-pixel, and a separate voltage is applied to each sub-pixel.
In an LCD in which the one pixel is divided into the pair of sub-pixels, however, coupling capacitances formed between respective sub-pixel electrodes and/or data lines cause an undesirable luminance difference, which lowers a display quality of the LCD. Accordingly, there is need for an LCD having reduced coupling capacitances while maintaining an acceptable aperture ratio, since as the aperture ratio of the LCD decreases, more power is required.